Media Urged To Promote Women Participation In Politics

A Kaduna-based Civil Society Facilitator, Paul Onwude, on Wednesday, December 11, called on the media establishments in Nigeria to support women in politics through precise reportage.

Onwude, who made the call at a one-day roundtable meeting on promoting media synergy on improving women’s political participation in Kaduna believed that, when the media put issues that affect women in the front burner, the concern stakeholders would act responsibly.

According to Onwude, “it is important to bring issues of women in politics on the front burner by taking a systematic  application perspective.

“There is also the need for media to make issues of women public outcry so that those in authority will take appropriate actions which will help in gaining a better support for them.”

A non-governmental organisation, Legal Awareness For Nigerian Women (LANW) in collaboration with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and support from UKaid under its Women In Politics (WIP) Project, had brought female politicians together to have an interface with media practitioners in the state for effective collaboration on promotion of their political interests.

The WIP project designed among others to see that more women are reunited into and established within political parties, increase awareness on and support for women political participation through community influencers. The project was from April 2019 to February 2020.

Executive Director, Legal Awareness For Nigerian Women (LANW), Barrister Rebecca Sako-John said there are several laws that give women equal opportunities to participate in politics.

She noted that, women constitute about 50 per cent in the society but when it comes to their visibility in public spaces especially through electioneering, only a few of them do make it which is contradiction in reality.

To Rebecca, political parties have not made a lot of efforts in enhancing the capacities of women to excel right from the available offices in political parties themselves.

To her, “women need to participate actively in politics to get their voices and input in the decision making process, to achieve  more impact and their contribution in building the society, to stipulate socio economic development.”

On her part, the Project Officer, Mrs Hannatu Ahuwan said the objective of the meeting was to bring media practitioners and members of Inter Party Women Network (IPWN) to create synergy on promoting more  women political  participation in Kaduna.

Hannatu noted that, the women In politics (WIP) project in 2016 was launched by DFID, seek to support the Nigeria Democratic Institute to execute the project where LANW is key.